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Top empty nester cities | Chappaqua Real Estate

Zillow, an online marketplace, conducted a study to show the top 10 housing markets for empty nesters in the U.S.

As it turns out, the pricey markets and places with weak labor markets have the highest concentrations of empty nests, the report, which is based on the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data from 2015, shows.

And the lowest densities of empty nesters are found in booming cities with strong job markets, retirement communities and new family-oriented areas.

In other words, this study by Ellie Mae which shows where Millennials flock will be the last places you might find empty nesters. And you can count metros in Florida and California off the list as well.

Empty nests are homes where the heads of the household are 55 years or older, own the home and have lived in it 10 or more years; there are no children of any age living in the home. These homes are gaining ground as the Baby Boomers age, rising to 15.5% of all households in 2015.

Here are the top 10 metros with the highest percentage of empty nesters:

10. Baltimore, Maryland – 17%

Baltimore city

9. Louisville, Kentucky – 17.2%

8. Virginia Beach, Virginia – 17.4%

7. Detroit, Michigan – 17.9%

skyline

6. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – 18.2%

5. Birmingham, Alabama – 18.3%

Alabama

4. Richmond, Virginia – 18.6%

3. Cleveland, Ohio – 19.4%

Ohio

2. Buffalo, New York – 20.1%

1. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – 20.2%

skyline

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Here are the top 10 metros for empty nesters

Mortgage rates average 4.23% | Chappaqua Real Estate

Freddie Mac (OTCQB: FMCC) today released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®), showing average mortgage rates dropping after two consecutive weeks of increases.

News Facts

  • 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 4.23 percent with an average 0.5 point for the week ending March 23, 2017, down from last week when it averaged 4.30 percent. A year ago at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 3.71 percent.
  • 15-year FRM this week averaged 3.44 percent with an average 0.5 point, down from last week when it averaged 3.50 percent. A year ago at this time, the 15-year FRM averaged 2.96 percent.
  • 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) averaged 3.24 percent this week with an average 0.4 point, down from last week when it averaged 3.28 percent. A year ago, the 5-year ARM averaged 2.89 percent.

Average commitment rates should be reported along with average fees and points to reflect the total upfront cost of obtaining the mortgage. Visit the following link for the Definitions. Borrowers may still pay closing costs which are not included in the survey.

Quote
Attributed to Sean Becketti, chief economist, Freddie Mac.

“The 10-year Treasury yield fell about 10 basis points this week. The 30-year mortgage rate moved with Treasury yields and dropped 7 basis points to 4.23 percent. This marks the greatest week-over-week decline for the 30-year mortgage rate in over two months, a stark contrast from last week’s jump following the FOMC announcement.”

Age of Housing Stock by State | Chappaqua Real Estate

According to the latest data from the 2015 American Community Survey (ACS), the median age of owner-occupied homes is 37 years. The age of housing stock is not evenly distributed across the United States. Among the states, New York has the oldest homes with a median age of 57 years old, followed by Massachusetts at 53 years. The median age of homes in the District of Columbia, which is entirely urban, is 75 years. The newest homes are in the West. The median age of homes in Nevada is only 20 years, followed by Arizona where half of all owner-occupied homes were built in the last 24 years ago.

The geographic distribution of the age of the owner-occupied housing stock is strongly correlated with population changes from 2000 to 2015. The population changes, including both natural growth and net migration, signal the rising demand for housing. States with faster population growth tend to have newer housing stock.

The age of the housing stock is an important remodeling market indicator. Older houses are less energy-efficient than new construction and ultimately will require remodeling and renovation in the future.

 

 

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http://eyeonhousing.org/2017/01/age-of-housing-stock-by-state/

Facebook CEO smart house | Chappaqua Real Estate

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave users a unique look into his home, as part of an explanation of his custom-made artificially intelligent assistant.

Building on Facebook’s internal technology for Messenger app building, Zuckerberg made an iPhone app, Jarvis, to connect the smart devices and phones around his home, similar to Amazon’s Echo. In explaining his progress in the app, Zuckerberg somewhat jokingly revealed some of the quirks of his lifestyle with his wife, Priscilla Chan.

For instance, Jarvis wakes Zuckerberg’s daughter, Max, up to a Mandarin lesson, thanks to Facebook’s visual face detection which determines when the infant is awake. This same technology helps Zuckerberg recognize who’s ringing his doorbell, he said.

We also know Zuckerberg has a pretty extensive set of Spotify playlists and someone in the family may be an Adele fan.

Zuckerberg also showed an interface to request a clean gray T-shirt — his signature look — from what he called a rigged-up ” T-shirt cannon.” He has also ginned up a special 1950’s-era toaster “that will let you push the bread down while it’s powered off so you can automatically start toasting when the power goes on.”

Creating the assistant was one of Zuckerberg’s yearly resolutions, which have also included running a mile a day, reading a new book every other week and learning Chinese.

This year’s challenge was aimed to help him learn how powerful AI can be with 100 hours of work, he wrote. For instance, Zuckerberg said that he realized texting Jarvis — especially if he was away from his home or in the middle of a task — was often more valuable than voice commands alone. That, Zuckerberg said, falls in line with trends he’s seen on Messenger and WhatsApp, where texting is growing more quickly than voice calls.

However, Zuckerberg said, with the voice bot, he learned to consider it a presence that responded more quickly and empathetically.

“It can interact with Max and I want those interactions to be entertaining for her, but part of it is that it now feels like it’s present with us,” Zuckerberg wrote. “I’ve taught it fun little games like Priscilla or I can ask it who we should tickle and it will randomly tell our family to all go tickle one of us, Max or Beast. I’ve also had fun adding classic lines like ‘I’m sorry, Priscilla. I’m afraid I can’t do that.'”

Zuckerberg said he found little bugs that showed how far AI systems are from being generalized for a wide variety of requests.

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http://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/19/how-the-other-half-lives-mark-zuckerbergs-life-inside-his-bespoke-smart-house.html?__source=newsletter%7Ceveningbrief

Housing starts down in November, permits up | Chappaqua Real Estate

Single-family housing starts dipped to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 828,000 in November, according to new residential construction data released by the Commerce Department Friday morning. This month’s result marks a -4.1% decrease from October’s downwardly revised rate of 869,000 and represents a 5.3% gain compared to November 2015, when the estimate was 786,000.

The Midwest was the only region to experience a month-over-month increase in 1-unit housing starts, rising 19.8% from October levels to a rate of 145,000. All other regions decreased from October levels, most significantly the West, where single-family starts dropped -15.3% to a still-healthy rate of 183,000. On a year-over-year basis, the Midwest and South reported gains in the single-family category. Gains were most significant in the Midwest, where this month’s levels surpassed October 2015 levels by 33.0%

Total housing permits, the leading indicator for future starts, fell -4.7% in November, primarily due to a big dip in the multifamily sector, especially permits for 5-unit or more structures, which fell -15.8% month-over-month. Single-family permits rose 0.5%, indicating that next month’s report could be mediocre. Permits issued for 1-unit structures increased 7.0% in the Midwest, and 2.7% in the West, while the Northeast and South experienced single-digit losses month-over-month.

Total privately-owned housing completions increased 15.4% in November to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,216,000. Completions of both single-family and multi-family housing increased in November following October’s strong report, by 3.3% and 44.5%, respectively.

 

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http://www.builderonline.com/money/economics/starts-down-in-november-permits-up_o?utm_source=newsletter&utm_content=Brief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=BP_121616%20(1)&he=bd1fdc24fd8e2adb3989dffba484790dcdb46483

NAR says home sales to continue to increase next year | Chappaqua Real Estate

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Predictions from the National Association of Realtors, the Mortgage Bankers Association,Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac show that home sales are going to heat up in 2017, according to a blog by NAR.

NAR predicted existing home sales will reach 6 million in 2017, an increase from this year’s forecast of 5.8 million, according to the blog. MBA predicted home sales will reach 5.75 million and Fannie and Freddie forecast home sales will come in at 6.2 million.

From the blog:

A huge wave of Generation Yers, who have delayed home buying, are emerging into their key buying years. They are predicted to keep home sales and condo sales strong well into 2020, according to economists.

Meanwhile, new-home construction starts likely will tick up to about 1.5 million per year to 2024, predicts Forisk Research.

Home builders likely will continue to be more subdued, despite calls for more inventory.

As for the rest of this year, the summer housing market saw high demand next to rising home prices, but don’t expect Fall to bring any relief. In fact, it could bring the hottest fallin a decade, new data from realtor.com shows.

 

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NAR forecasts heated housing market in 2017

Low Mortgage Rates Sustain Improving Housing Markets | Chappaqua Real Estate

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Freddie Mac released its Multi-Indicator Market Index® (MiMi®), showing two additional metro areas — Indianapolis, Indiana, and Columbus, Ohio — entering their historic benchmark levels of housing activity.

The national MiMi value stands at 85.1, largely unchanged from last month, indicating a housing market that’s on the outer range of its historic benchmark level of housing activity with a +0.14 percent improvement from June to July and a three-month improvement of +1.24 percent. On a year-over-year basis, the national MiMi value improved +4.70 percent. Since its all-time low in October 2010, the national MiMi has rebounded 43 percent, but remains significantly off its high of 121.7.

News Facts:

  • Thirty-eight of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia have MiMi values within range of their benchmark averages, with Utah (97.5), Hawaii (96.6), Montana (96.5), Colorado (96) and Oregon (95.8) ranking in the top five with scores closest to their historical benchmark index levels of 100.
  • Seventy-nine of the 100 metro areas have MiMi values within range, with Los Angeles, CA (99.5), Salt Lake City, UT (100.6), Provo, UT (98.9), Honolulu, HI (98.7) and Nashville, TN (101.6) ranking in the top five with scores closest to their historical benchmark index levels of 100.
  • The most improving states month over month were Illinois (+1.72%), Nevada (+1.36%), Florida (+1.20%), Alabama (+1.14%) and South Carolina (+1.00%). On a year-over-year basis, the most improving states were Florida (+10.03%), Oregon (+9.49%), Colorado (+9.09%), New Jersey (+8.64%) and Tennessee (+8.54%).
  • The most improving metro areas month over month were Lakeland, FL (+2.13%), Youngstown, OH (+1.92%), Chicago, IL (+1.73%), Orlando, FL (+1.63%) and Las Vegas, NV (+1.61%). On a year-over-year basis, the most improving metro areas were Orlando, FL (+16.20%), Tampa, FL (+13.03%), Lakeland, FL (+13.02%), Chattanooga, TN (+12.89%) and Palm Bay, FL (+12.47).
  • In July, 32 of the 50 states and 75 of the top 100 metros were showing an improving three-month trend. The same time last year, all 50 states and the top 100 metro areas were showing an improving three-month trend.

Quote attributable to Freddie Mac Deputy Chief Economist Len Kiefer:

“Nationally, MiMi in July was largely unchanged for the third consecutive month at 85.1, yet marking a 4.7 percent year-over-year increase. Despite rising house prices, the majority of housing markets have sustained their momentum due in large part to low mortgage rates. For example, purchase applications, as measured by MiMi, were up more than 17 percent year over year in July and remaining at their highest level since December 2007.”

The 2016 MiMi release calendar is available online.

MiMi monitors and measures the stability of the nation’s housing market, as well as the housing markets of all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the top 100 metro markets. MiMi combines proprietary Freddie Mac data with current local market data to assess where each single-family housing market is relative to its own long-term stable range by looking at home purchase applications, payment-to-income ratios (changes in home purchasing power based on house prices, mortgage rates and household income), proportion of on-time mortgage payments in each market, and the local employment picture. The four indicators are combined to create a composite MiMi value for each market. Monthly, MiMi uses this data to show, at a glance, where each market stands relative to its own stable range of housing activity. MiMi also indicates how each market is trending, whether it is moving closer to, or further away from, its stable range. A market can fall outside its stable range by being too weak to generate enough demand for a well-balanced housing market or by overheating to an unsustainable level of activity.

Mortgage rates average 3.50% | Chappaqua Real Estate

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Freddie Mac (OTCQB: FMCC) today released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®), showing the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate increasing to its highest level since June.

News Facts

  • 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 3.50 percent with an average 0.5 point for the week ending September 15, 2016, up from last week when it averaged 3.44 percent. A year ago at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 3.91 percent.
  • 15-year FRM this week averaged 2.77 percent with an average 0.5 point, up from last week when it averaged 2.76 percent. A year ago at this time, the 15-year FRM averaged 3.11 percent.
  • 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) averaged 2.82 percent this week with an average 0.4 point, up from last week when it averaged 2.81 percent. A year ago, the 5-year ARM averaged 2.92 percent.

Average commitment rates should be reported along with average fees and points to reflect the total upfront cost of obtaining the mortgage. Visit the following link for the Definitions. Borrowers may still pay closing costs which are not included in the survey.

Quote
Attributed to Sean Becketti, chief economist, Freddie Mac.

“The 10-year Treasury yield rose 18 basis points to 1.73 percent, its highest level since Brexit. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage followed suit, rising 6 basis points to 3.50 percent this week. This is the first week since June that mortgage rates were above 3.48 percent, snapping an 11-week trend.”

Home prices continue to rise | #Chappaqua Real Estate

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Home prices continue to rise from last year, according to the S&P CoreLogic, Case-Shiller Indices.

S&P Dow Jones Indices is a division of S&P Global, which provides essential intelligence for individuals, companies and governments.

The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index, covering all nine U.S. census divisions, reported an annual increase of 5.1% in June, unchanged from the month before. The 10-City Composite increased 4.3%, slightly less that May’s 4.4% increase. Similarly, the 20-City Composite increased 5.1% annually, down from May’s increase of 5.3%.

Click to Enlarge

case-shiller

(Source: S&P Dow Jones Indices and CoreLogic)

Of those 20 cities, Portland, Seattle and Denver posted the highest annually gains over each of the last five months. In June, Portland increased the most at 12.6%, followed by Seattle at 11% and Denver at 9.2%. Overall, six cities reporter a higher price increase in June than in May.

“Home prices continued to rise across the country led by the west and the south,” says David Blitzer, S&P Dow Jones Indices Index Committee managing director and chairman. “In the strongest region, the Pacific Northwest, prices are rising at more than 10%; in the slower Northeast, prices are climbing a bit faster than inflation.”

“Nationally, home prices have risen at a consistent 4.8% annual pace over the last two years without showing any signs of slowing,” Blitzer said.

Click to Enlarge

case-shiller

(Source: S&P Dow Jones Indices and CoreLogic)

After seasonal adjustment, the National Index increased 0.2% monthly in June. The 10-City Composite and the 20-City Composite increased 0.1% monthly.

On the other hand, after seasonal adjustment, nine cities saw a decrease in home prices.

“Overall, residential real estate and housing is in good shape,” Blitzer said. “Sales of existing homes are at running at about 5.5 million units annually with inventory levels under five months, indicating a fairly tight market.”

“Sales of new single family homes were at a 654,000 seasonally adjusted annual rate in July, the highest rate since November 2007,” he said. “Housing starts in July topped an annual rate of 1.2 million units.”

 

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Case-Shiller: Home prices continue upward trend

US Homebuilder Sentiment Slips in July | Chappaqua Real Estate

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U.S. home builders are feeling slightly less optimistic about their sales prospects this month, though their outlook for the new-home market remains positive overall.

The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo builder sentiment index released Monday fell one point to 59.

Readings above 50 indicate more builders view sales conditions as good, rather than poor. The index had mostly held at 58 this year before rising to 60 last month.

Builders’ view of current sales and traffic by prospective buyers slipped one point this month. Their outlook for sales over the next six months slid three points.

The latest survey of builders follows a recent pullback in sales of new U.S. homes.

Sales declined 6 percent in May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 551,000 homes. Overall, though, sales are running ahead of last year’s pace through the first five months of this year, aided by job growth and ultra-low mortgage rates.

The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage ticked up 3.42 percent last week, staying close to its all-time low of 3.31 percent in November 2012. A year ago, the average rate was 4.09 percent.

While new-home sales have rebounded from the depths of the housing bust, the current rate of new home sales lags behind the historical annual average of roughly 650,000 homes. New home sales figures for June are due out next week.

Many builders also continue to grapple with a stubborn dearth of skilled workers and available land parcels cleared for new construction.

Still, the NAHB expects that new-home sales will continue to grow, albeit slowly.

“Job creation is solid, mortgage rates are at historic lows and household formations are rising,” said Robert Dietz, the NAHB’s chief economist. “These factors should help to bring more buyers into the market as the year progresses.”

This month’s builder index was based on 304 respondents.

A measure of current sales conditions for single-family homes slipped one point to 63, while a gauge of traffic by prospective buyers fell one point to 45. Builders’ view of sales over the next six months slid three points to 66.

 

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http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/us-homebuilder-sentiment-slips-july-40664158